How communication technology became a tool of repression: the case of the UAE

With the help of international ‘cyber security dealers’, the internet has been transformed into a central component of authoritarian control.

Giant poster dedicated to Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, located near the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi. Picture by Artur Widak/NurPhoto USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.In the aftermath
of the ‘Arab Spring’, as counter-revolution casts its repressive
shadow across the Middle East and North Africa, the tools that a
short while ago enabled revolutionary organisation on a mass scale
have subsequently changed hands.

Once celebrated, and in some quarters credited, as playing the
defining role in the Arab uprisings of 2011, social media and the
internet more broadly have now been transformed into a central
component of authoritarian control, as the balance of power has
shifted firmly away from the masses in the region.

This is evident
in the United Arab Emirates where government critics, bloggers and
human rights defenders have been disappearing at an alarming rate as
a result of their social media activity, while dozens of online news
publications from the Huffington Post to Al Jazeera have been blocked
by the authorities for publicly expressing views counter to that of
the state.

Since 2011, Gulf
rulers have passed legislations that effectively criminalise
criticism of their regimes. In a bid to quell the harbingers of
revolt, authorities have tightened their control over information and
communication technologies.

For a brief moment, the internet provided a space within Emirati society where debate, criticism and ideas thrived

In the UAE this
control came in the form of the cybercrime law, approved in November
2012 by Emirati president Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed. Its vaguely
worded provisions effectively outlawed the use of information
technology as means to argue for political reform, criticise senior
officials or organise unsolicited demonstrations, enabling Emirati
authorities to clamp down more efficiently on dissenting voices
within their borders.

This cyber
crackdown materialised in response to the faint rumblings of
discontent which began to manifest themselves in the Emirates. As
revolutions engulfed the Arab world in 2011, Emirati lawyers,
academics and human rights activists took to blogs and social media
sites to call for relatively modest democratic reforms and, for a
brief moment, the internet provided a space within Emirati society
where debate, criticism and ideas thrived. A political opposition had
begun to emerge in the 'sleepy Emirates', which was previously dubbed
the 'Switzerland of the Middle East' for its relative internal
stability and seemingly mediatory foreign policy agenda.

These
developments seemed to confirm the long-held view by certain sections
of the academic community that predicted that as the Gulf monarchies
sought to diversify their economies away from reliance on oil
revenues, the development of technological and communication
infrastructure, alongside inward capital flows from western tech
companies, would result in the emergence of a civil society that
would eventually democratise the political apparatus of the state.

This
modernisation drive has been no more evident than in the UAE, where
in the last decade a burgeoning tech start-up scene has developed, to
the extent that Apple and Google have opened headquarters in Dubai.
The Emirate has consciously marketed itself as the ‘Silicon Valley
of the Middle East’, even setting up ‘the Dubai Silicon Oasis
Authorities’ that the Prime Minister of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid
al-Maktoum promises will make Dubai the “world’s leading centre
of advanced electronic innovation, design and development.”
Crucially, this sort of discourse enables the Emirati authorities to
project an image of the UAE as a beacon of openness, tolerance and
modernity to the outside world.

As technological advancement has increased, so too has the repressive arm of the state

The impact of
this new digital economy has resulted in a 91% internet penetration
in 2016, with social media activity at one of the highest rates in
the Middle East. Yet, as technological advancement has increased, so
too has the repressive arm of the state, as the Emirati authorities
have sought to utilise these developments to curtail freedom of
speech and suppress dissenting voices. Through the cybercrime law
they have all but crushed the emergent movement that began to develop
inside the country.

Since the Arab
uprisings of 2011, the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority
(TRA) have worked closely with cyber-crime units attached to the
security apparatus to implement a suffocating internet censorship and
surveillance system. A cyber-police force, officially termed the
department of Anti-Electronic Crimes, constitutes a special unit
within the Dubai police force which works around the clock to monitor
the internet, disproportionately targeting political dissenters and
human rights activists.

The vague
provision of what constitutes a cyber-crime has meant that in
particular, journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and
government critics find themselves tracked by the authorities. In
recent years, they have been arbitrarily detained, forcefully
disappeared and in some cases tortured because of their social media
activities. According to the Emirates Media and Studies Centre, in
2016 alone around 300 people were detained for comments on social
media sites that allegedly criticised the ruling regime. Furthermore,
in March of this year, Jordanian journalist Tayseer al-Najjar and
prominent Emirati academic Dr. Nasser Bin Ghaith received jail
sentences of three to ten years respectively due to Facebook and
Twitter comments that the authorities deemed to be critical of the
state.

It is important
to note that this tightly controlled police state has, in the UAE,
been facilitated by a new network of global ‘cyber-arms dealers’
that have been only too happy to cater to a burgeoning gap in the
market, created by oil-rich Gulf monarchies with an eye to quell any
form of dissent. Earlier this year, a BBC investigation revealed that
British based arms manufacturer BAE systems had been exporting
cyber-surveillance software to the UAE, and other Middle Eastern
states, which has subsequently been used by the Emirati authorities
to spy on their citizens. Furthermore, in 2016, QintetiQ, a UK
company formerly part of the Ministry of Defence that specialises in
cyber security ‘providing comprehensive monitoring and alerting
software’ opened an office in Abu Dhabi to provide ‘technical
advice and support to security clients primarily within the UAE’.

This tightly controlled police state has, in the UAE, been facilitated by a new network of global ‘cyber-arms dealers’ that have been only too happy to cater to a burgeoning gap in the market

In a story that
garnered international attention last year, the prominent Emirati
human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor was dubbed ‘the million-dollar
dissenter’ by media outlets after it was discovered that his iPhone
had been hacked by the UAE authorities with software supplied by the
Israeli security company NOS Group. The Emirati government reportedly
paid the Israeli firm $1 million dollars for the software. Mansoor
received a text message promising him information on political
prisoners in the UAE if he clicked on a link in the message.
Suspicious and alert to such threats, he passed the phone on to
Toronto based Citizen Lab, who specialise in communications
technologies and human rights. They discovered that the hacking
software would have enabled authorities to track Mansoor’s every
movement and conversation, essentially turning his phone into a
mobile surveillance device. Commonly referred to as the last man
speaking out about human rights in the UAE, Mansoor was arrested for
his social media activity and disappeared in March this year. He
remains in an unknown location without access to a lawyer.

The case of the
United Arab Emirates sheds light on the fact that these technologies,
when in the hands of repressive authoritarian regimes, can be used to
eliminate any kind of democratisation of social media, or the
internet more broadly. Cyber technology cannot be viewed out of the
context of the material conditions in which they are embedded.
Instead, they should be seen as enabling and enhancing a state’s
control over its citizens. As the balance of power has shifted away
from the masses so too has social media, which is now situated within
the confines of authoritarian rule. For a flicker of a moment it
provided an alternative space in which political dissent thrived and
organised, but now with the assistance of an international network of
'cyber security dealers' this space, for now, has well and truly
closed.

About the author

Joe
Odell is Press Officer at the International Campaign for Freedom in
the UAE. He regularly writes and speaks on political issues in the
Middle East @ICFUAE

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